My youngest daughter turned 13 today. Actually she'll be 13 at 8:31 am. I remember I felt pain like a stabbing the Friday before she was born. I went to the doc and they told me I hadn't started dilating yet and sent me home. Saturday night, my husband and I stayed up late watching a movie. I remember laying in my bed around 1:00am with this stabbing pain and I heard a "pop" and I leapt out of bed and water gushed out all over the floor. My husband was sleeping on his back and shot straight up like a jack knife.

With my first daughter my water broke also, but just a bit at a time, I wasn't in labor yet. With my youngest, I was in labor. We rushed to the hospital. She was 3 weeks early to the day.

She couldn't get warm and stayed blue, so they put her on my naked chest, under my hospital gown, put a warming blanket over us and put us under a warming light to get her warm. She had the need to be close like that and was always searching out hugs until she was about 11 1/2. I'll never forget her warm little hugs and cuddles when she was a baby.

We had a quiet moment this morning. I made her blueberry pancakes and she cuddled up to me before we left for the bus. She's taller than me now and doesn't search out hugs very often anymore, but she's still my baby. It's gone very quickly; these 13 years.